Curio Shoppé

Mangaldas ni Haveli, Old Ahmedabad

There's the city and then there's the old city – a story true for almost every Indian town. The new city has flat streets and paved roads with houses on the sides. It is manufactured.

The old city has meandering pathways and shaded streets, barely wide enough for a scooter. Buzzing with activity is often a marketplace. As our "guide", a professor from AMA said, "The roads resemble an outdoor room, a meeting place for all to gather."

The old city has buildings which would truly look out of place in any modern suburb. As we ate ice-creams from the first Vadilal store, purchased curios from market vendors and sampled the roadside food, fruit markets and aamras included, I couldn't help but draw a parallel to Mumbai's Colaba Causeway: The old city has character. A certain way about it that makes it qaint and perfect at the same time.

The picture above is of the inside of Mangaldas ni Haveli. Once the dwelling of a family, it is now a curio shop and a café. It's an HDR composite of 5 pictures taken with a Sony 7.0 megapixel compact camera.

Some of the component photographs are: